Video marketing metrics – how to rank like a pro on YouTube

Friday 21st December 2018

A good-looking, well-shot, compelling and on-message company video is great – but it’s only half the job done. To really deserve that big pat on the back/ promotion/ salary increase, you need to demonstrate traction. Video marketing metrics are thus crucial as they help you determine if a video is hitting its objectives.

YouTube is the social platform for sharing video content with the wider world. After all, it does boast almost 2 billion active users every month. Of course, not all of them are necessarily watching your video – or engaging with it in any meaningful way. But some are – and these are the stats you need to show ROI.

As a video strategy company, we pay as much attention to YouTube ranking factors as we do to lights, camera and action. The following stats all count towards how a video ranks on YouTube – which ultimately provides a very good indication of how well your video is performing and delivering on its objectives.

View-through-rate

Many marketers look at how many times their video has been viewed, but don’t consider this a serious ranking factor. Rookie mistake! The number of views is very important. To determine an accurate view-through-rate (VTR), all you have to do is go to the analytics section of your YouTube account and pull the stats for complete views (users that didn’t skip the ad) and impressions.

Comments

To get some positive comments started, it doesn’t hurt to reach out to friends, family and colleagues. Share the video with them and ask them to watch the video all the way to the end, and then to leave a comment – something real and relevant. Don’t do this for too many videos as it gets a bit spammy. You can also ask viewers for their opinion as a way to generate comments but be prepared to respond in good time and take a bit of criticism.

Shares

A shareable video is a big win. An even bigger win is when it’s being shared with a large and relevant audience. Pay attention to who is sharing your video content, who they’re sharing it with and which channels they’re sharing it on. Help the process by getting it out on all the relevant channels and boosting its presence by linking to it from your website and other marketing activities.

Unique views

Counting total views is a great piece of data to present to your big boss. It’s also important because that stat is visible to your audience. As the number of views increases, more people feel compelled to watch what other people are watching.

Audience retention

How many people click on a video for a couple of seconds or a minute and click out? Too many. Unfortunately, a half-watched video is not going to help your video marketing metrics If your average audience retention rate is under 30% then you definitely need to investigate why people are not watching your video all the way to the end. Chances are your video is too long and could be cut down.

Drop off point

When reviewing audience retention, mark the point in the video when people drop off. It’s highly likely that most viewers will stop watching around the same time – why? Have a look at what changes at that point in your video. Perhaps people have learnt everything they need to by that point and don’t feel the need to carry on watching? Make sure you explain the video upfront – but entertain all the way to the end.

Position over time

An obvious last one to track is your video’s ranking over time. Check how well your content performs over time and whether its ranking goes up or down. Ask yourself what possible external factors could contribute to its fluctuating position such as the holiday season or a big sporting event. It’s often a good idea to benchmark videos against one another to work out why some perform better than others. Just make sure you use the same assessment criteria to identify key differences.

If you need help staying on top of your video marketing metrics and working out a video strategy that actually works, we can help.